


Farra Highwind

by Summertime_Poet



Series: Big Sister Aranea 'verse [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, a brief insight into aranea's life growing up, the first in a series of fics and arts!, the introduction to what is to come
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26580739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summertime_Poet/pseuds/Summertime_Poet
Summary: Farra Highwind was a practical woman. When she found out at age nineteen that she was pregnant – a fact that became obvious to everyone else as well soon enough – she already expected the discharge she got without comment a few weeks later. She had started to become fed up with the Nif army a good year ago already and, together with some of her equally unsatisfied messmates, stole a couple of decommissioned dropships and made them their new home.
Relationships: Aranea Highwind & Aranea Highwind's mother
Series: Big Sister Aranea 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933450
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Farra Highwind

**Author's Note:**

> The first in a series of fics centering on Aranea, Prompto, Luna, Cor and some other familiar faces :) In this verse it isn’t Cor or another member of the Crownsguard who finds and rescues Prompto, but Aranea! ^^
> 
> This fic is set a good year or two before the others and focuses on Aranea and her mom. ^^
> 
> Thank you [Moon-Raccoon-exe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moon_Raccoon_exe/) for the advice and encouragement to post what I have written and drawn so far in the form of a series! <333
> 
> Please enjoy! <3

Farra Highwind was a practical woman. When she found out at age nineteen that she was pregnant – a fact that became obvious to everyone else as well soon enough – she already expected the discharge she got without comment a few weeks later. She had started to become fed up with the Nif army a good year ago already and, together with some of her equally unsatisfied messmates, stole a couple of decommissioned dropships and made them their new home.

She didn’t like talking about the past, so the most some people knew of her was that she had joined the service at age fifteen, a solid fighter who had been ahead of many other recruits who had a year or two on her. And that was enough, in her opinion.

She was a levelheaded leader and treated her mates fairly, not like subjects to be commanded around for her entertainment, but like a group of skilled people who had to work together to fulfill a purpose – and that purpose was to earn enough to keep them all alive another week.

*

The empire had likely been displeased about the theft of the old dropships, if they ever had found out about it in the first place, but none of them had ever come after the group, so most of them considered their airborne homes safe. Farra still liked to listen in on the few army radio channels they had managed to reactivate, just to make sure their ways would not cross on accident.

*

Her daughter was much like her, Farra reckoned, and, most of the time, she was happy about it. Aranea was practical, knew when told to dodge and run without questioning her mother and overall was a fairly independent child.

Farra tried to spend more time with her every once in a while, whenever they had enough money to not be hunting things (or dangerous people) down or simply had time to kill. That wasn’t the case very often.

Aranea didn’t seem interested in that a lot, however, and spent a lot of her free time training with the two other kids on board. Most of the time, though, she trained alone.

There wasn’t a terrible lot to do on a dropship, after all.

Farra sighed and hoped that her daughter wasn’t _too_ much like her.

She didn’t want her to experience the regret she still felt sometimes.

*

The day Aranea turned ten, Farra woke her up with a kiss on her tangled hair and smiled at her.

“Tell me what you want to do and we’ll do it.” She grinned and Aranea thought, for a moment, about how young her mother looked all of a sudden.

“I want to...” She paused. _What did she want?_

She wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to interfere with their ships’ destination, not go anywhere too far that it would inconvenience them if they had to return...

“Can we just watch a movie together?” she asked instead and smiled hesitantly at her mother.

Aranea could tell that she was _trying_ , trying to be there, but she was gone a lot, always had been for as long as Aranea could remember and... while Aranea tried not to take it personally, tried not to let it affect her... she felt like she didn’t know her mother all too well beyond who she was when she was working and trying to keep everyone safe and alive.

Aranea didn’t have much to talk about with her. So a movie was probably the safest option.

*

Halfway through the movie, Farra got a call. Aranea paused the movie and watched as her mother’s face went through a set of different emotions – excited, assessing and, in the end, serious and determined.

“We’ll take it. We can be there by early afternoon.”

Aranea waited for her mother to explain what she already suspected.

“A new client. The job’s a big one, so it’s going to take a while. But it’ll pay us enough for us not to have to take any further jobs for _several months_ after.”

Aranea’s eyes widened. That _did_ sound like one big job.

“Can I come along again?” She had been helping out in hunts for the past two or three years now, as a bait or distraction at first and recently also as part of the attack group.

“It’s going to be too dangerous for you, I’m afraid.”

Farra looked at her with a gaze that told Aranea that arguing was pointless. She still wanted to come along, though, prove herself to the others and show them how her technique was improving.

Farra’s voice made her close her already opening mouth. “You’ll look after the dropships while we’re gone. The area where we’ll land will be rather close to the frontlines and if they shift, you’ll have to take the ships out of there until we’re back.”

Aranea nodded.

She hated the frontlines. They’d been near them several times already and every single time, the noises of war made her skin crawl with fear.

“Okay.”

Farra left to inform her people of their new mission. They didn’t finish watching the movie.

*

“Malu and Tirr are going to stay in the other ships. Feel free to turn on the comm to chat while we’re gone. No leaving the ships though, alright?”

Farra ruffled Aranea’s hair as her daughter nodded.

“When will you be back?”

Farra sighed. She truly didn’t know, could only guess. “Three or four days, at max. Five, if things get ugly.” She grinned, feeling certain that things would look up very soon.

“We’ll be back in no time and then we can finish watching the movie together. How about that?” She smiled and Aranea nodded.

“Sure.”

“Okay, alright then.” Farra hugged her goodbye and waved at her with a final look over her shoulder as the adults left the ships. 

*

They hadn’t returned by the end of the third day, or even the fourth. Not even after the fifth or an entire week.

Aranea didn’t know what to do.

Her mother _hadn’t told her_ what to do when they _didn’t_ come back.

She was stressed and worried and had already packed a bag to go look for them, when she heard something up above them, familiar and deadly, slowly coming closer.

She was running a second later, shouting while she made for the exit, hoping that Malu and Tirr heard her over the open comm channels.

*

In the end, she made it out alive. The other two didn’t.

Turned out the Empire knew about the stolen dropships. And found them conveniently landed near the frontlines they kept pushing toward Insomnia these days.

They didn’t hesitate long and instead of reclaiming the old ships, destroyed them.

Aranea didn’t sleep for three days as she kept running, hoping to find _anyone_ of the people she knew. But everyone was gone and she didn’t have a home anymore either.

She cried another two days and, when the provisions she had packed started to run out, forced herself to stop and began searching for food.

She learned quickly that, while staying in them for too long was unsafe, there were more than enough empty houses and abandoned research facilities with more than enough provisions for her to survive on.

She wasn’t sure where to go, but considering the situation... She bagged the first map she could find, some two weeks in, and made into the direction she hoped Lucis was in.

There was a frontline to avoid, however, so she would be taking the long route.

If nothing else, she thought as she pushed back tears that were starting to sting her eyes again, she was persistent.

And she set out.

**Author's Note:**

> Aranea's on her own for a while now, but rest assured, she'll soon start stumbling across other(familiar face)s ^^ The series isn't called Big Sister Aranea 'verse for nothing, after all :P
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this fanfic as much as I enjoyed writing it! As always, you can also find this fic on my fanfic blog, patsdrabbles over on tumblr. ^_^ I'll try my best to edit and post more of my fics (and drawings) for this verse soon! ^-^
> 
> Feedback is, no matter how short, super appreciated and bound to make my entire week! <333


End file.
